TORRINGTON — The fast-moving current of the Naugatuck River one day after heavy rainfall served as a backdrop Friday for U.S. Rep. Elizabeth H. Esty and representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers who came to talk about the city's two miles of levees along the Naugatuck River and the city's hope to get them certified again.

The Army Corps of Engineers built a levee system after the Flood of 1955, which destroyed much of downtown. Decades later, after Hurricane Katrina, lax maintenance standards for levees across the country became more stringent. The federal government placed the city's levees on "inactive status" because the city was not maintaining them to Corps standards.

If the Corps dropped the city flood control system from its purview, nearly 200 property owners in a designated flood plain would be forced to buy flood insurance.

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